The First Encounter
by RainaMoonforest
Summary: What does Kylo Ren think when he first meets Rey? Does he meet her challenge, or will it be his undoing? One-Shot. Complete.
_**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any characters therein, I only like to play in that world.**_

 _ **This is my first One-Shot fanfic, so please be gentle and let me know what you think! Thanks!**_

You know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know you're doing something you shouldn't? That raw, cold, bubbly feeling that consumes you to your core until you can't stand it anymore or accept it?

I'm way past accepting it.

Too far gone to feel the goosebumps anymore. The only thing that's left is the overwhelming, suffocating feeling I get when I'm not near her.

I'm addicted.

Addicted and I can't stop wanting this feeling.

* * *

The first time we met she was a threat. Everything that I'd heard about her set my teeth on edge. She was the only thing standing in the way of my mission. When I found her in the forest, she as alone and scared. I could sense her fear—it lead me straight to her. She stumbled back and fired her blaster over my right shoulder, missing entirely. Her second shot would have hit me in the chest, but I ignited my saber and deflected.

I was drawn to her, moving toward her automatically. She tripped again, firing her blaster a few more times before crawling away. Her shots became more erratic as I closed in on her. I threw my force towards her and pinned her arms down in place. Her eyes were wide in panic, but all I could see was the gold in her irises. My voice found itself before my mind could catch up. "The girl I've heard so much about," I said, slowing walking to stand behind her.

Everything I've always wanted, every mission I have ever fought—it was nothing compared to her standing in my way now. I took a deep breath before speaking again. "The droid," I said, raising my saber to the left side of her face. She was beautiful. I was thankful at that moment for my mask, because she couldn't see how much it pained me that we were enemies. "Where is it?"

Her hazel, brown eyes looked up at me as I moved to face her again. She didn't speak and my patience was growing thin. I gripped the hilt of my lightsaber in frustration and retracted it, clipping it to my side before channeling the force once more.

My fingertips hovered over her face as my energy seeped into hers. Her mind was unprotected and pure. Her consciousness melded with mine with such ease that it took me by surprise. Her feelings matched mine and her thoughts were mine. Everything that I had ever believed to be true in the world was suddenly put to question by the mere presence of this…girl.

 _Focus. The mission_ , I told myself.

"The map," I said, to get myself back on track. "You've seen it."

She was silent again, eyes boring into my black mask.

"Sir!" A soldier said to my left. I faced the trooper, glad for the interruption. "Resistance fighters. We need more troops."

"Pull the division out," I ordered, turning to the girl once more. "Forget the droid. We have what we need."

* * *

That feeling was consuming me once more and I didn't understand it. It felt cold and tight, in my chest and through my lungs. Breathing was painful in a way I had never known before. What was it about this girl? I didn't even know her name or how she had joined the resistance, but I was going to find out.

I carried her to one of the empty rooms that I used to meditate and had a soldier bring in a restraining platform. They strapped her down and fastened the latches before turning and leaving the room. The door hissed behind them, locking.

We were alone.

She was still knocked out, head tilted to the side slightly as she lay in the harnesses. I watched her from the ground, waiting for her to wake. The longer it took, the more I wanted to be in her head—to understand her. I reached out with the force to touch her mind again but she jumped awake, looking around the room until she saw me, squatting on the ground. She grunted against the cuffs, fidgeting slightly. "Where am I?"

"You're my guest," I replied, voice low from my mask.

"Where are the others?"

"You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?" I looked away a moment. She didn't hear me sighing. "You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea." Her eyes narrowed on me, completely piercing through my mask. "You still want to kill me…" I was shocked that I genuinely wanted to know.

"That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask," she countered, holding her chin up defiantly. She was challenging me.

I watched her for a moment, waiting for her to look away. But she didn't. I couldn't let her win.

Not like this.

My helmet clicked and hissed slightly as I pulled it off and stood. Her expression changed when she saw me—as if she were surprised I was human. I looked down to the mask in my hands as she took in my features. Her scrutiny made me feel vulnerable. As if I were the one tied up instead. My anger snapped for a moment and I slammed my helmet into the ashes of my grandfather.

 _Damn it, just focus on the map._ I reprimanded myself, walking around toward her. "Tell me about the droid."

She looked straight ahead, ignoring me entirely as I came to stand beside her. She spoke quickly, "He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator—"

"It's carrying a section of a navigational chart," I interrupted, looking down at her again. I studied her chin and neck, slowly making my way to her wrists. "And we have the rest." My gaze returned to hers. "Recovered from the archives of the empire, but we need the last piece." Her hazel, golden eyes locked with mine for a moment, brows creasing with concern. "And somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you." Her pink lips were separated slightly as she breathed. "You," I whispered, shaking my head slightly. "A scavenger." I could see her swallow as she flinched in the restraints once more. "You know I can take whatever I want." My voice was not my own; words were spilling out that I couldn't control. It unsettled me.

I leaned in, using the force to penetrate her mind again, hand close but not touching her forehead. Her cheek. Her throat. I could see her thoughts as clear as day. She was worried. Worried that she wasn't at home, waiting. "You're so lonely," I whispered, leaning my head towards hers. For a moment I wanted our foreheads to touch, but I resisted. "So afraid to leave." I was too close. So close that I could smell her cinnamon scented hair, mixed with the earthy smell of dirt, trees, and sweat.

I could see her home, where she etched a line in the wall every day. The sun was orange when it set and left her in complete darkness, forcing her to listen to the wind brush the sand across the metal of her fortress. "At night," I continued, "desperate to sleep. You imagine an ocean. I see it." The water was almost black in her mind—black like the night she feared; the loneliness I also knew. In the middle of the dark water was a small patch of green. "I see the island." On that island, a face—

"And Han Solo." I cleared my throat quietly, surprised at her thoughts. "You feel like he's the father you never had. He _would_ have disappointed you."

The ocean, the island, the calm of her mind was snatched away from mine in an instant. A blank, white slate dropped down over her thoughts, boxing everything inside. "Get out of my head." She warned, scrunching her brows and nose.

 _Now that's more like it,_ I thought to myself, suppressing the smile on my lips as I came to face her head on. "I know you've seen the map. It's in there. And now you'll give it to me."

She strained against my attempts again. The white box pealing slowly away at the seams so that I could see the green behind once more. I looked into her eyes, and for a moment she spoke to me. Not with words, but with feelings. I could feel her anxiety. The same feeling that I couldn't shake when I looked at her, or thought of my parents. That burning, ice pain that makes it impossible to concentrate. She begged for me to stop, not to dig deeper, to know who she was and what she knew.

"Don't be afraid." I said, raising my hand slightly so that I could feel her more clearly. In that instant, I let her feel my own anxiety. "I feel it too."

She gasped, understanding my attempt to confuse her with my emotions and flattened out the edges of her shields once more. "I'm not giving you anything."

"We'll see," I replied, smirking despite myself. She had spirit; a fire that I had not seen in a woman before her. She leaned forward now, gritting her teeth and reaching out to me. She was attempting to do use the feelings that I had shown her as a way to see through me, but it wasn't going to work.

I wasn't prepared.

Her touch was gentle and sweet. Not demanding, or harsh. Just seeking. She looked into my soul, with ease and didn't flinch at what she saw. A broken, disheveled man without a purpose. I only sought out power and greatness and she put that all to question with a single look. Her hair clung to her face as the sweat began to collect around her temples.

She was so young. So new to the force that she wasn't used to the strength it took to wield it.

She blinked once, hard, and looked at me again anew, shooting her consciousness into mine like an arrow and hitting my heart. She saw the mask. My grandfather's old, crumbling, burnt mask that I kept as a reminder of his failure. How I never wanted to fail. Not like him, not with anyone. Or anything.

"You," she said, bringing my thoughts back to the present. "You're afraid." My heart stopped beating. "That you'll never be as strong as Darth Vader."

I stepped back, completely withdrawing from her and gaped at her for a moment. No one had ever known that about me, much less said it to my face. The truth in her words scared me and thrilled me at the same time. For the first time in my life someone had seen the real me, and all she had done was tell me something that I already knew instead of degrading me.

I couldn't take her gaze anymore and I left the room, assigning a guard to her door before stumbling down the hall.


End file.
